June 2000

From: Homer T<Homer_t@realmail.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000

after 2 yrs of eating cold noodles with chopstix in shanghai, i’m off to the land of beef n’ plenty for 2 wks to repack my bags, a stopover to see the o’ heartthrob in taipei, then it’s off to the new life in barcelona by mid-may.

I will miss biking aginst the light, eating sweet n’ salty in the same meal, and seeing dawn break over mao ming lu. but seat in at the local hacienda with bottomless coffee will be worth it! don’t think me worst for giving up cushy ex-pat job for eating dirt poor future but visions of spanish nights beckons...
Hom

From: Gennine S<Gennine_s@realmail.com>
Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2000

One moment ago it felt like we had so much time to catch up, and now. . .

Don’t eat unwrapped airplane food,
Drink lots of gin and tonic to avoid jet lag,
Call and hang up after one ring to let me know you’ve made it safely,
Gennine

From: Homer T<Homer_t@realmail.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000

did not call n’ hang up because i’m NOT feeling safe. after a 3 year long-distance romance with her in taipei and me in shanghai, sarah will not go to spain with me. loves her work too much to leave even thou she loves me as much. Won’t ask me to stay since knows i can’t forsake my dream. seems that to go on waiting for unknown number of yrs for each other don’t make sense. we love but our futures wont’ let us be together. will leave on the 7:50 tomorrow am.

i can’t ask her to leave her life because then she will stop being who she is. ditto for me. feels as if my heart was ripped out and stomped on. what if i’m making the biggest mistake of my life? WHAT IS LOVE and why does it hurt so much???!!!?
Hom

From: Gennine S<Gennine_s@realmail.com>
Date: Thr, 27 Apr 2000

You may not want to hear this right now. My thoughts are never conventional, but then that’s why you ask me isn’t it, so here it goes . . .

Most people think that love requires a something. “I love . . . (you name it) a person, a place, a memory, a feeling, etc.” And so they read the self-help books and learn to love themselves. Or they go to a psychiatrist and learn to love their parents. Or they open up and learn to love a mate.

Then one day, for a few lucky ones, something clicks inside and they realize with startling clarity that love requires no object. Love is a state of being. For example, I don’t have to do anything to be a woman. I can describe what it feels like, all the characteristics, the advantages and disadvantages and so on. But to actually be a woman requires . . . nothing on my part, I just am.

Love is the same. Perhaps life wants you to know your own loving essence. It has taken sarah away so that you will find the way to your own heart. The love you wanted is the love you already have -- within. Anything else is an add-on. If you’re asking, “did I make the right decision?” I don’t know. Love of a mate is good but it’s not the answer to the question, What is Love?

Let it shine, let it shine,
Gennine

From: Homer T<Homer_t@realmail.com>
Date: Fri, 19 May 2000

tks for your email ... and a quick note to let you know I’m alive and well (?). well, maybe not well, but at least not as bad as when i wrote to you before. family and friends telling me i’m nuts. they don’t get better than her, what are you thinking of yadi yadi ya. feeling like a freak. why don’t i want what everybody else wants?

i place my faith in eventually reaching a point of timing, fate and balance. i feel emotionally empty at the moment. but i know this a place i need to be in until i can manage to come out of myself again. but it is a little lonely and then there is just me.
Hom

From: Gennine S<Gennine_s@realmail.com>
Date: Sat, 20 May 2000

Actually you’re very brave. It ain’t easy to go off the well-traveled path. We go into this quest full of confidence, driven by a voice inside that says, there's more meaning to life this way. We arrive at truths that seems to contradict everything we were taught and we are giddy at discovering such secrets. Maybe China was that for you.

Then the path gets trickier. Instead of learning and growing, suddenly we seem to fall apart. We didn't know that in order to continue growing, we would have to be taken apart, and have our worlds turned upside down. And we have to do it alone.

For the journey takes us inward, to those places and hidden recesses only we know are there. No one can help us find the way, no one can give us the courage to face such dark corridors.

It's not a matter of expectations, or even of luck. It is because all renewal requires destruction. But expectations of a certain life take energy and if we give in to that, we are left feeling empty inside.

This morning as I sat down to write to you, I noticed that the tree outside my sunroom window has blossomed since I last looked at it. It is covered in tiny while clusters of blooms. The sun is strong and a breeze is causing the branches to sway ever so gently.

This scene reminded me of something that I had written and kept in my wallet from a few years ago – when I was anxiously waiting for my self-transformation and feeling impatient that it was taking too long. “. . .to be patient – to let life unfold. As in nature, one doesn’t sit and wait for flowers to bloom. One goes on with life and then one day, one notices there are flowers where there used to be buds.”

Outside my window today, there are flowers.

Homer, it might be small consolation right now but what you went through is like digging up the soil to plant your own flowers. I think on some level, you knew when you left your job in Shanghai that you were choosing a path of uncertainty and surprises. You asked for an adventure to stretch your heart, you just didn’t know the lessons would come so fast and with so much pain. But how else would life get your attention? To make it worthwhile, get all you can out of it. And that means examining it.

Wishing you flowers soon,
Gennine